Shipping

As we enter the home stretch of the holiday season, should small to midsize businesses (SMBs) even try to compete with one-to-two-day delivery times? According to a new study from ShipStation, there’s still hope to win shoppers over — even if retailers can’t afford speedy deliveries (and it doesn’t require a Christmas miracle). Shipping Cost Outweighs Everything,…

This holiday season it’s all about fast and free shipping of online orders. Therefore, in an exclusive interview with Total Retail, Carson Krieg, co-founder and director of carrier operations at Convey, Inc., discusses the lessons from Amazon Prime Day that merchants can apply to the upcoming holiday peak season. Carson Krieg,…

Effective Dec. 29, 2019, UPS Ground, UPS Air and International services rates will increase by an average of 4.9 percent. Keep in mind that there's often a discrepancy between the announced increase and the effect the increase has on individual shippers. Our team at Shipware will perform a detailed analysis of the announced increases over the…

When Amazon.com first introduced its “Fulfillment by Amazon” (FBA) program in 2006, it was impossible to know whether the online retailer fully recognized the growth prospects of the market it was walking into. Ironically, Amazon’s owner, Jeff Bezos, has joked about the difficulties of packing and shipping orders from his home-office during Amazon’s early years.…

In an effort to help brands and retailers stay on top of consumer mind-sets surrounding the evolving online shopping experience, Dotcom Distribution, a premier provider of B-to-C and B-to-B fulfillment and distribution services, conducts an annual e-commerce consumer survey. The 2019 study explores where brand decisions and consumer behaviors intersect, and how that affects purchase…

Costco is teaming up with delivery startup Instacart to test free delivery of prescription drugs to its members. The pilot program is limited to California and Washington state, according to two people familiar, and includes delivery to a Costco member’s home or office. One Costco member who has used the service told CNBC that he…

Amazon.com just added a new perk to its popular Prime membership program: free grocery delivery. The retailer announced today that it will start delivering grocery products within a two-hour window to all Prime members living in the 2,000 regions eligible for the service. That means Prime members, who pay $119 per year in the U.S.…

Retailers have long held that the customer experience is based on enhanced in-store experience, as well as an equivalent online experience that offers seamless shopping. The study of customer experience has rightfully included strategies that include hiring knowledgeable and highly trained customer service agents and retail salespeople, placing online retail on an equal status to…

Walmart has launched a new service that will deliver groceries and put them away in your fridge, CNBC reported. The service, called InHome grocery delivery, is a membership program that has an introductory price of $19.95 a month, but also requires customers to purchase a $49.95 smart door lock kit or smart garage door kit.…

Brands have traditionally invested heavily in customer service as a central component of the customer experience. However, new research from project44 suggests that may be changing. The apps that power our lives, and specifically those that power our purchases, have continued to evolve, reshaping the customer experience. As a result, delivery, which was once a…